


Siren's Call

by Mertiya



Category: Magic: The Gathering
Genre: All of a sudden there were mermaids, Alternate Universe - Historical, And they were Jewish, Dolphin mermaids, Dolphin sex oops, I don't know how this happened you guys, Jewish Character, Jewish mermaids, Judaism, LGBTQ Jewish Character(s), M/M, Mermaid Jace, Not sure how that one happened, Ral's PoV, Scientist Ral, mermaid au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-02
Updated: 2017-11-02
Packaged: 2019-01-28 05:42:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12599472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mertiya/pseuds/Mertiya
Summary: Ral Zarek just wants to find decisive proof as to the existence or non-existence of merfolk.  He doesn't expect to find himself rescuing one from a carnival sideshow, and he DEFINITELY doesn't expect to find himself falling in love.





	Siren's Call

**Author's Note:**

> Art by Zomburai :D

            Ral paused for an instant, reseating his leather satchel at his side as he got ready to enter the tent. After paying far more money than he rightfully could spare to that odious carnival owner, he’d better damn well get something out of this. He’d been chasing the merfolk myth from ten miles outside of Prague all the way to the London East End, and if this was another manatee or a dolphin with human arms clumsily glued on, he was going to be fit to be _tied_.

            Just some kind of unreported specimen, that was all he wanted. There were reports of sightings in waters where manatees had absolutely no business being: surely, surely he could find something that would settle the question one way or another. But the carnival owner, metal glinting in his smile, was not exactly a person that Ral felt himself inclined to trust. He would have said anything for the promise of a little money, and Ral was fast running out of funds. London was expensive, and there was little work available, especially for someone whose accent marked him as a foreigner. He had been eking out a living as a clerk, but it paid barely enough to cover the rent on his tiny flat, and his meals had been slowly growing smaller and smaller as time went on. If this latest lead turned out not to be a lead, he was going to have to leave and try somewhere else. Well, he might as well find out.

            He lifted up the flap and ducked into the tent. It was dimly lit, some watery natural light filtering through the cracks beneath the tent and a smoky oil lamp set in one corner. In the back, there was a glass structure of about two feet high, and inside that a tiled bath sunk into the ground, which was surprising, since Ral had vaguely thought the carnival needed to be easily transportable. And inside, drooping sadly—

            It really was a merman. The carnival owner hadn’t been lying after all. It was curled up in an attitude that looked miserable, huddling in one corner of the small bath as much as something with a spine of that shape _could_ huddle, but the humanoid torso was clearly visible, as was the grey-blue rubbery flesh it melted fluidly into near the waist. It looked up as Ral entered, and he was struck by the human misery in those pale eyes, the way its dark hair flopped forward over its eyes. The face and torso were marked by faintly glowing blue symbols, and he could just see a ragged strip of cloth wound round its middle, hanging down below its hips.

            “ _Můj bože_ ,” Ral managed, caught by surprise. In a hushed voice, still in his native tongue, he said, “You’re beautiful.”           

            Whatever he had expected next, the sudden startled thin voice from the figure in the tank was not it. Not when it said, in halting but unaccented Czech, “You…speak my language?”

            “You,” Ral said, and he wasn’t sure whether it was Czech or English. “What?”

            The merman flipped gracefully over, landing in the water with a splash and swimming the few feet across the tank with an undulatory motion, a style of swimming far closer to that of a dolphin than a fish. Wincing, he pulled himself up, making a pillow of his hands on the steel edge of the tank and resting his chin on it. “I almost thought that I’d dreamed it,” he said, still speaking in Czech, more fluently now. “I thought I must have made up the memories.” 

           “You—” Ral stalled out again, brain racing. Was it possible that this was a cruel joke? Could the creature in front of him be a talented mimic, taught just a few phrases by its owner? Slowly, hands still shaking, he took out his notebook and held it open in front of those blue eyes. “What does this say?”

            A confused blink. Ral felt his heart sink, and then the merman sank lower in the water and said softly, “I can’t read.” 

           There was no way this reaction could have been predicted, and yet Ral still pressed. “Why not?”

            “I never learned? Or at least, I don’t remember learning. Why are you asking all these—oh.” The face, which had looked almost awed and hopeful, fell again; a light fled the eyes that Ral hadn’t even realized was there until it was gone. “So I’m to be an experiment, then, as well? How much did you pay Tezzeret for the opportunity?”

            Heat spread from the back of Ral’s neck up to his ears. Usually, he would have retorted angrily that he was a professional, thank you very much; he exchanged money when it was necessary in his line of work, and he had nothing to be ashamed of. But—“If I’d known you were intelligent, I would have asked _you_ ,” he snapped. “Hell, I’d have paid you. I’ve been trying to find a way to prove merfolk one way or another for _years_ , and you _are_ beautiful.”

            Sudden, naked shock displaced the almost sardonic resignation. “Really. Well, that’s a first.”

            The heat spread down Ral’s neck into his chest, tightening and nestling there, and it took a moment before he felt as if he could answer. “I take it no one asked you about your presence here?”

            Again, a little flicker of surprise. Ral’s chest constricted about the heat, making it difficult to breathe. “Humans don’t ask me much of anything,” the merman shrugged. “It seems to be a congenital issue of theirs.”

            “Well, I’m not going to apologize on behalf of the entire human race, because I hate most of them anyways.” Ral shrugged. “And I’m pretty much out of money at this point for the time being, plus I’m not sure there’s much you could do with it from in there. But how about this: you let me examine you and I’ll pay you by breaking you out?”

            The blue eyes went wide in the pale face. “You can’t,” the merman said bluntly. “Tezzeret would—and Baltrice would—”

            “Yeah, honestly, I don’t really care what they would and wouldn’t do. Never met them before, probably never going to deal with them again. It’s not an issue.”

            “Y-You don’t understand.” The merman was shivering. “W-We’d just be caught, I’d be brought back, and, a-a-and—I tried to escape once. Before. But. But.” He closed his eyes, breathed in, breathed out, then clumsily maneuvered himself around in the water, revealing his naked back to Ral. It was covered in raised, ridged scars, and splotched smears, still with the slick painful rawness left by reasonably serious burns. The fire spread from Ral’s chest down into his stomach, and he felt the leather of his notebook giving way beneath his nails. That was no way to treat a good notebook.

“Of course you couldn’t escape by yourself,” he said. “Your mobility on land must be reduced by quite a bit. I doubt you made it to the water at all, did you?”

            Slowly, the merman shook his head. “Well, there you go,” Ral said, matter-of-factly. “Do you know how fast dolphins can swim in the open ocean?” Again, that head shake, eyes widening. “Ten meters per second. From here, I can’t tell how similar the epaxial and hypaxial muscles of your tail are to those of a dolphin, but—” he paused, nearly smacking himself in the face with his notebook, “—how high can you jump?”

            “Um.” The merman fidgeted. “Quite high, I think. Say five meters?”

            Unable to stop himself, Ral flipped the notebook open and made a note. “That’s definitely on the high end for a dolphin. So ten meters per second is definitely not an unreasonable estimate.” He smiled blandly. “So, tell me—um, I’m sorry, what’s your name?”

            “Oh. Um. I’m Jace.” The merman was almost smiling again, and that was good, that was very good, Ral wanted to see more than that.

            “Ral,” he said, extending a hand, which Jace took hesitantly, as if no one had ever offered him one before. Maybe they hadn’t. “So, tell me, Jace, if you reached open water—how do you think they would ever catch you?”

~

            Jace’s anatomy was _fascinating_. Although Ral very much wanted to get him out of this shoddy carnival and out to somewhere full of water, void of fire, and safe, he also wanted to study the merman, and, besides, it would be significantly easier to formulate an appropriate escape plan if he had a good idea of Jace’s capabilities.

            Ral’s reasonably extensive knowledge of dolphins turned out to be very relevant. Jace’s inhuman half had the basic musculature and flipper shape of a small dolphin. He swam like a dolphin, moving his tail up and down, although it turned out to be difficult to test this because his tank was far too small for him to get up to reasonable speeds.

            “Have you not been able to get any exercise?” Ral asked with some concern.

            “Before—when I was with Alhammarret, he let me swim quite long laps,” Jace replied. “I had a chain on my wrist to stop me from getting away, but I didn’t really know where I would go anyway. It’s been a few months now, though.”

            Which could reduce his maximum swimming speed. Fantastic. At least the muscles probably hadn’t atrophied; Ral didn’t think he could bear the thought of Jace not being able to swim at all. His body was so beautifully adapted for the water, the join at his torso where the pinker human flesh became grey-blue so utterly seamlessly.

            Jace didn’t recall much before his time with the man named Alhammarret, who had apparently been some kind of traveling alchemist. “I remember speaking this language,” he said softly, “but I can’t remember who I was talking to. There were houses in the mud, beneath the river, and there were nets. Someone warned me not to go near the nets, but one day—I was just curious, so I did—and I got tangled up and caught. The fishermen were going to butcher me, but Alhammarret saved me. He paid a lot of money for me, so he said I ought to be grateful. And I was, I just—I wished he’d let me go home.”

            From Alhammarret, Jace had learned to speak Spanish and English and a few words of a Middle Eastern language Ral didn’t recognize, perhaps Arabic. Home. Home to Ral meant the spires of Prague, the high walls of the synagogue at once confining and protecting. Ral did not understand the worship of his father and mother, but he did understand the sense of home and community that it fostered, even if he sometimes felt like an outsider even in his own shoes; he’d always been drawn on by wanderlust, while at the same time feeling awkward and out of place and wishing for his childhood bed.

            The clothing puzzled Ral at first. It wasn’t impossible, he supposed, that a human-like culture—which clearly the merfolk were, if they spoke the same language that he did—would wear clothing, but it did seem as if it would cause some trouble when swimming unless it was very carefully constructed. When he asked Jace, Jace gave him a sideways, frustrated look. “Humans wear clothes,” he said carefully. “If you don’t wear clothes, you’re a savage, you know.” He picked at the cloth bound about his waist. “It _is_ harder to swim in, and Alhammarret didn’t always insist, at least not when we were alone and I was out in the river. I think we did have some clothes when I was a child, but they were usually reserved for ceremonies? I don’t remember very well, though.”

            Ral, aware that it would be distinctly improper to ask to see underneath the cloth, managed to resist the urge, despite the nigh-overwhelming curiosity. So he was very surprised and quite flustered when Jace asked, almost casually, “Did you want to see? I’ve been poked and prodded so many times that having someone actually ask is a novelty.”

            “Technically speaking, I didn’t ask.”

            Jace stuck out his tongue. “You _wanted_ to ask.” He sprawled back along the cramped tile outcropping beside his tank and began to undo the knots at his waist, letting the grubby blue cloth fall open, and Ral felt a sudden, unwelcome, totally unnecessary flush rising to his cheeks. Trying not to show his embarrassment, he leaned over to examine the stripe of flesh high on Jace’s tail that had been previously hidden.

            Most of it was just more smooth grey-blue flesh, although Jace’s ridged, luminescent whorls—whatever they were, Ral quite frankly still didn’t have a clue—did protrude down from his human chest to below his waist. Beside that, he had two long slits that Ral clinically noted vaguely resembled a human vagina; beside the upper of the slits were two smaller slits, barely visible. Very reasonable anatomy if he’d been inspecting a male dolphin—the genital slit, the anal slit, and two vestigial mammary slits, presumably.

            Ral nodded, stroked his chin because that made him feel more detached, and took careful notes, while trying to ignore the heat coiling in the base of his stomach. “I take it if you become aroused—” He was quite proud of the cool, medical tone he managed.

            Jace actually flushed slightly at that. “It doesn’t often happen,” he admitted. “But, um, it happened more when I was younger. It—” he indicated the upper slit. “Uh. It comes out of there. My uh.”

            So he was embarrassed by that, if not by the naked display. “I apologize if that’s—personal,” Ral managed stiffly, and Jace shook his head with a laugh.

            “I did show you what’s visible,” he shrugged. “It makes sense you’d want to know. I don’t know how I would reproduce, but probably about the same way a human would?”

            Cold-water-shock to the back of Ral’s neck. Right. Reproduction. Jace might not be human, but he was still a _man_. Besides, this was supposed to be a clinical investigation, and Ral was very afraid that had Jace known of his—proclivities—he might not have been nearly as comfortable sharing the anatomy. The question about arousal _hadn’t_ had an ulterior motive—Ral was nearly sure of that—but he was uncomfortably aware that there might still be false pretenses at work here.

            And yet Jace was in no position to hurt him with the knowledge, even if he had it, so Ral took a deep breath, deliberately looked away, and said, very softly, in Czech, “I am not attracted to women.” Pause. Heartbeat. No response. “So,” Ral continued dryly. “If that makes you uncomfortable, we can stop.”

            Warm breath on his neck. “That’s _possible_?” Jace said near his ear.

            “Of course we can stop, we can stop whenever—”

            “It’s a human thing? You _did_ mean you were attracted to men, right?”

            Startled, Ral turned. Jace’s mouth was tantalizingly close to his, and he had to take a long, deep, shuddering breath. “It’s not—much talked about,” he replied haltingly. “But. Yes. Human men who are attracted to other men—we exist.” Faint emphasis on the _we_.

            Jace shut his eyes, shoulders shaking, then leaned sideways. “So, that doesn’t make me an abomination either,” he said quietly. “I’m not an abomination at all, am I?”

            “You are a miracle of nature, and I would stake my life on that,” Ral said, voice raw, not even sure where the words came from. The startled, chagrined expression on Jace’s face made Ral smile. “This is why I have to get you out,” he said steadily, and, although it barely sounded like his voice, he knew that every word was true. “You belong in open water.” Like a storm, cut loose and free to rage across it. But he didn’t know how to say that, so he simply made another note in his notebook, and then put his hand gently over Jace’s. Jace shut his eyes.

            “Thank you,” he whispered, and no one had ever spoken to Ral in quite that tone of voice.

~

            It was more difficult to examine Jace’s torso, head, and upper limbs, because Ral’s knowledge of humans was significantly less thorough than his knowledge of aquatic animals, which was rather embarrassing, he had to admit. He’d never really believed he’d find a merman; not in the traditional half-human, half-fish sense. Well, technically he still hadn’t. Jace was all mammal; Ral was still struggling to ignore the absurd warmth coiling around his stomach when Jace was nearby. Even if the merman _was_ interested in something less than platonic, this was definitely not the time to engage with it. Time enough to reconsider once he wasn’t trapped inside a too-small tank in a carnival as a sideshow attraction.

            Still, most of the tests Ral was capable of carrying out showed that Jace’s human half was as human as he was himself, apart—once again—from the strange, glimmering blue patterns that seemed to be part of him. When asked, all Jace could say was that he thought he’d had them for as long as he could remember. Peering down Jace’s throat revealed more patterns, thinner, barely visible, but still there. They beat faintly with the rhythm of his pulse, but they were not blood vessels, because Jace’s pale skin made it easy to see those beneath his fragile wrists. They also seemed to glow a little when he spoke, which was puzzling.

            When Ral asked if he knew of anything unusual associated with his voice, Jace shook his head slowly, then paused and put a hand to his mouth. “I just remembered,” he said softly. “I’d forgotten. There was _singing_.” He frowned and shut his eyes. “There was singing,” he murmured again, and then he opened his mouth, and a few thin, quavering notes tumbled out. “ _Sh’ma Yisrael—_ ”

            Ral scrambled backwards in shock, nearly falling into the water. “ _How_ —” he choked out. “How do you—how do you _know_ that?”

            Jace blinked and frowned. “I…don’t know?” he said. “I don’t—remember? There was singing and mud and candles, I remember that, but I don’t—why? What is it?”

            “It’s the _shema_ ,” Ral croaked. “It’s the prayer of my—” he paused. “—my family. My family and their people,” he finished, finally, almost limp at the sudden wave of familiarity that had passed over him. He might not be practicing, but the flavor of those words still resonated with _home_ , with _safety_ , with _my place my people mine._ “I need to get you home,” he said urgently to Jace. “I _need_ to know more about where you came from. You speak my language, you know our—my parents’—my people’s prayers.”

            A number of expressions flickered across the merman’s face, and he took in a great, sudden swallow of air. “Home?” he echoed wistfully. “I’ve—never had a home.”

            Ral barked out a hollow half-laugh. “You have a home,” he said. “Doesn’t matter what you look like; even if we can’t find out where you came from, they’ll welcome you in the Jewish Quarter.”

            “Oh,” said Jace, and he closed his eyes and tipped his head back. “ _Oh_. That’s—that’s—” he paused, shuddering. “I can’t find words.” He pressed his hands into his eyes, choked out a sob. “I don’t know why I’m crying,” he said, wonderingly. “I don’t know why I’m crying.”

            “I’m going to get you home,” Ral said thickly. He didn’t believe in god; he hadn’t believed in god since he was seven years old, but he couldn’t deny that this whole situation had a touch of the miraculous about it. Either way—miracle or coincidence—Jace deserved to be taken home. Open water, freedom, and the solid walls of the synagogue waited for him.

~

            The plan had seemed extraordinarily simple when he’d come up with it. Get Tezzeret and Baltrice to have a drink with him under the pretext of another potential deal, drug them both, pack Jace into the bathtub-on-wheels he’d hammered together over the weekend, wheel him to the river, let him go. And it had worked, up to the point where he’d run into _another_ carnival owner on the way to the river.

            “I admire your initiative, really,” she was saying brightly. “But surely I can prevail on you to accept a reasonable sum for it?”

            Ral backed into the bathtub. They were so close to the river, but not close enough that Jace could reasonably be expected to pull himself there over the rough ground. “I’m not interested,” he said harshly. “I can’t study money.”

            “Then perhaps once you’re finished with it?” She adjusted the cleavage of her bright purple dress, which made Ral want to laugh a little wildly.

            “Yeah, sure,” he said. “But I’m not really in the mood to barter tonight, so if you don’t mind.” He tried to take another step in the direction of the river; behind him, Jace made a distressed splashing noise.

            “Don’t worry,” the woman who had introduced herself as Liliana Vess said airily, and Ral was forced to let her bend over the bathtub and take Jace’s chin in her hand, twist his head this way and that. Clouded, mutinous anger showed in the blue eyes, and Jace’s hands clenched at the sides of the tub. “I’ll take much better care of you than Tezzeret did. You’ll be the star of the show. I’ll make you famous, you’ll see. You’ll have meals served to you on a silver platter. Everyone will know your name.”

            For a moment, Ral felt a strange, cold fear that he could not understand. If what she was offering was really what Jace wanted, then—then perhaps he should have that. That weird little voice inside of Ral’s chest, the constriction, the sudden feeling of loss—it had no place. He had no right to have such a reaction: him, the perpetual outsider.

            Jace leaned up intently. “You called me ‘it’,” he said clearly, and he flipped to the side, lashing out with his powerful tail, knocking Liliana backwards to the ground. Ral choked on a laugh at the expression on her face.

            “So, uh,” he said. “I’ll contact you later then, shall I? If you still want _him_.”

            She spat brackish water to the side. “How dare you!” she snarled. “You’re going to regret this—”

            “I think we’d better keep going,” Ral said. “Lovely as this conversation has been.” As he began to walk again, he murmured, “Nice aim,” and he swore, even in the dimness of the streetlights, he could see Jace blush red.

            In his haste to get away, he turned down the nearest street he could find, and that was a mistake, because he did not know the streets of London nearly as well as he would have liked, even after nearly a year in the city. Within moments, he was lost. “Damn,” he muttered to himself. Jace popped his head out of the water.

            “What’s wrong?” he asked.

            “Your hearing is too good, that’s what,” Ral retorted in his native language. “I’m not sure which way to go.”

            “I’m not much good with—” Jace paused. “ _Flat_ navigation. I never have been.”

            And that was certainly something to look into at a later time. But right now, with the streetlights flickering a daunting chiaroscuro, was not that time. Not for the first time, Ral cursed his own lack of a sense of direction and the skies above London for their black emptiness. Not even stars to navigate by. A sudden black homesickness overtook him; he chose the next few streets by instinct.

            Without expecting it, he turned one last time, and there it was, the river, pouring blackly by the side of the street between the high, concrete banks. Not where he’d intended to drop Jace off, but it would do. If he could figure out how to get Jace down to the water, if he could—

            Something fiery hot and painful striped across his shoulders, and Ral yelped, instinctively going down on one knee. He turned, half-falling against the metal bathtub at his side.

            Baltrice was standing in the alleyway, a torch in one hand, and a wide, angry grin on her face. “So here’s where you were gallivanting off to,” the fire-eater remarked. “Tezzeret is _not_ happy. And when he’s not happy, _I’m_ not happy.”

            The tub began to vibrate as the merman inside splashed agitatedly back and forth. “Jace,” Ral gasped. “You’re going to—” Dull thud. He’d actually thrown himself against the side. “Stop!”

            “Yes, you’d both better stop moving until Tezzeret gets here, or are things are going to be really unpleasant for you.” There was a dark glee in Baltrice’s voice; behind Ral, Jace was muttering a string of words, fading from language to language as if he were trying to escape that way.

            Ral clawed at the tub behind him, trying to get enough purchase to stand up, and Baltrice lifted the torch to her mouth as if she were about to blow a kiss. Fire lashed toward the two of them again; Jace screamed, high and hoarse and desperate. Ral turned his back, throwing his arms around the merman; the fire coursed painfully across his back. “Jace, stop thrashing,” he grunted. “Trust me.”

            The merman’s breathing was so fast that Ral thought he might actually pass out, and he was still murmuring what sounded like supplications in Spanish. “Put your arms around my neck,” Ral grunted—thank god for adrenaline, because he was going to feel impossibly terrible tomorrow, and somehow Jace listened to him.

            “Stop!” Baltrice shouted, and Ral somehow got one arm under Jace’s torso and one arm under his tail and managed to stagger upright with an armful of slippery merman. Just a few steps—one, two—and he was looking down at the water. “Open water,” he murmured to Jace.

            “Wait—” Jace gasped, but before he could react, Ral had opened his arms. Jace sucked in a surprised breath, and then he was falling. Perhaps by instinct, he tucked his arms into his body and slipped into the water with surprisingly little fuss, barely disturbing the calm surface. Baltrice shrieked with anger; Ral put his hands up in the hope of protecting his face a little. It was occurring to him suddenly that he had exactly zero possible exit strategies at the current juncture, which was really more than a little concerning.

            “How dare you!”

            He’d readied himself for renewed fire, so Ral had absolutely no ability to react when two hands took him by the shoulders and tossed him backwards. He pinwheeled his arms in the air, but the angle he was at was too far away from ninety degrees to the shore, and he could not stop himself from falling backwards.

            The shock of hitting the cold water was almost enough to rob him of consciousness entirely, and he felt the air forced from his lungs, bubbling upward and away from him, even as the current caught him. Deceptively calm as the river had looked on the surface, beneath that surface, it was a maelstrom. He tried to open his eyes, but there was nothing but black water in front of him, and no amount of thrashing would do any good when he didn’t even know which way was up. This was—not good.

            Struggling with his coat and satchel, he tried to undo the buttons, but his suddenly-numb fingers couldn’t undo the clasps, and they dragged at him. Some small, cold part of his brain noted that if he could swim _against_ that tremendous tug, he might find his way towards the surface again, but his freezing limbs could barely muster the energy for a twitch, much less the requisite strong concerted kick.

            _Damn._ His lungs were burning, in contrast to the icy chill permeating the rest of his body. _Damn you_. He didn’t want to die, but he needed to _breathe_ , and no matter how much he told himself that there was only water out there, he wouldn’t be able to suppress the terrified, clawing, animal instinct much longer. Another small part of his mind mourned that his satchel was highly unlikely sufficiently waterproof to have protected his research notes, so when he died, absolutely nothing of him would remain, not even his ideas. There would be no trace of Ral Zarek on this earth at all.

            A pair of strong, warm arms encircled him, and he found himself pressed to someone’s chest, but he still couldn’t see a damn thing. A wet mouth was laid clumsily across his, lips probing and pushing as if to get him to open his mouth. _If I open my mouth, I will drown,_ Ral wanted to snarl, but he couldn’t snarl that without opening his mouth, or, for that matter, without air. Oh, what the hell. It hardly mattered anymore. The pain in his lungs was too much. Maybe drowning wouldn’t be as painful as he’d heard it would be. Reports of the pain levels _must_ be somewhat exaggerated, or at least inaccurate, since it wasn’t an experience most people came back from.

            Whether or not he actually decided to let it, his mouth opened, convulsively attempting to inhale. Instead of the cold water he’d expected, he felt moist, hot air, a little musty, but still, _damn_ , air flowing into his lungs. Ral heaved a gasp and another gasp, barely aware of anything but the sudden welcome feeling of _being able to breathe_.

            The current still dragged at them, tumbling them along for another stretched, chilled moment, and then Ral felt Jace’s tail move, hesitantly at first, then harder and harder. Almost easily, the strong beat moved them sideways to the current, and Ral felt his breath hitch, because that—that was truly astounding, and he wanted to examine Jace’s tail muscles all over again. Though, perhaps, now wasn’t really the _best_ time. In another moment, he felt silt beneath his feet; Jace pushed him up, and his head broke the surface of the water. There was a stir beside him, Jace’s tail churning up the water, and then he’d vanished again.

            Ral sighed, stumbling up out of the river and coughing out water, shivering uncontrollably. At this point, all he wanted was a hot drink and a hot bath, although he knew he and Jace would have to work out logistics before they made it that far. And then he looked up and felt his heart sink another notch. Tezzeret and Baltrice stood on the shore. Tezzeret was holding a loaded pistol, and a bright gleam of fire surrounded Baltrice’s hands.

            “Oh, come on,” Ral said.

            “You see, Baltrice? Never assume someone is dead unless you’ve seen the body firsthand,” the carnival-owner said quietly. “This is why I tell you to shoot people in the head.”

            “Sorry, boss.”

            “Even if you kill me, you’re not getting him back,” Ral pointed out tiredly. “Is it really worth your time?”

            “You make a compelling point,” Tezzeret said, and he took a step forward and pushed the barrel of the pistol under Ral’s chin. “Perhaps just shooting you won’t improve my mood. I imagine I can come up with something much more inventive.”

            “I’m too fucking cold and tired for this shit,” Ral responded. “If you’re not going to shoot me, can we at least continue this conversation somewhere indoors?”

            A stripe of fire flickered across his face with shocking rapidity, and he yelped in pain.

            “You’d better close your mouth before I burn your tongue off,” Baltrice told him with manic cheer.

            Ral, who was still too utterly done with everything to be frightened, automatically started to open his mouth to retort—which would probably have been stupid—but before he could say anything, a thin, high noise pierced through the air around them, shivering through Ral’s ears almost painfully.

            “What’s _that_?” Baltrice asked. All three of them turned to look.

            Jace had pulled himself part of the way out of the river on the other bank. His tail was still largely submerged, and his hands braced himself on the muddy ground of the bank. His mouth was open, and his eyes were flickering with a cool blue glow. What did he think he was doing?

            Exhausted and frustrated, Ral flapped his arms, trying to shoo Jace away. If it was extremely unfortunate for him to be caught, it was highly and entirely _pointless_ if Jace was caught as well. Jace ignored his motions, and the glow grew stronger, the sound of his voice louder and higher and—sweeter. Blinking, Ral wondered if there was really a golden haze descending along the riverbank. It seemed quite unlikely, and yet that was what his eyes seemed to be telling him.

            He shook his head, trying to clear it, but the weird gold-tinted fog remained, tightening at its center and coiling upward to form an image of Jace, beckoning. Ral took a step towards him, a sudden need for safety—for home—for a home that he had never felt before driving him on. And then, faintly, he heard words in the song. _Sh’ma Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu—_

            Gold expanded to fill Ral’s vision, and Jace’s voice was all he could hear. And yet—something about it was distant, closed-off. As if a wall had been erected between them, Ral could only stand and listen. This was not for him. This would never be for him, he thought sadly. The eternal outsider. The eternal wanderer. Angrily, he scrubbed at his eyes with his hands. What did it matter if he didn’t have a home? He had his work. Surely that was all he needed.

            The notes wavered and rippled, hauntingly beautiful. And then, as suddenly as the music had started, it stopped. Ral blinked his eyes; the riverbank was suddenly visible again, with a bedraggled, exhausted-looking merman half-slumped on the opposite side. But it was strangely empty. Tezzeret and Baltrice were gone.

            “What—” Ral croaked. Jace was shivering.

            “Th-The river,” he said faintly. “The river took them…”

            “What did you do?” Ral asked, and Jace shivered, the glow slowly fading from his eyes and the markings on his chest.

            “I don’t know,” he whispered. “I just didn’t want them near you anymore. So I sang—a prayer—”

            There had been that blue glow down Jace’s throat that Ral had gotten distracted from, and there were tales of sirens, of Lorelei—Ral had never put much stock in them, but he was at a loss for any other explanation. He searched for words of reassurance and found none. So he said, “Thank you,” instead. And then, stupidly, “I suppose you’re safe now.”

            Jace stared at him across the river. “I suppose,” he replied haltingly.

            “Well, then.” Ral nodded at the river. “Open water.”

            For some reason, the merman actually winced slightly. “Are you sending me away?” he asked finally, and Ral stared.

            “I—no, I’m just—you’re safe now?”

            Jace took a deep breath. “I don’t want to be alone,” he said, a little quietly. “I don’t want to ask too much, but I—enjoy your company—and honestly, I doubt my own ability to make it all the way home by myself without getting taken by someone else again. But if—if you’d rather not be bothered with me anymore—”

            Ral’s hand was tingling slightly. “Oh,” he said. “I. No.” As Jace’s tail started to droop, he clarified hastily, “It wouldn’t be a bother.” Shaking his hand, he looked down at it, and, to his surprise, realized that there were three semicircular red dents in the palm: he must have been clenching it quite hard. “I’m tired of London anyway.”

            He’d like to visit Prague again, he thought vaguely, his mind skirting around the idea, keeping the memories walled off and contained. His stomach turned over strangely, and he shoved that feeling down as hard as he could.

            Giving him a lopsided, exhausted smile, Jace slowly slipped back into the river. “Thank you as well,” he murmured. Ral didn’t know how to respond, so he just haltingly smiled back.

~

            Ral wasn’t quite sure how he’d gotten here, to an inn perhaps ten miles outside of Prague, and he certainly wasn’t sure how he’d managed to get a merman into his bathroom, on top of that. The evening was a blur of stress and exhaustion, but he had some memory of putting Jace in a dress and introducing him as “my invalid wife.” He still wasn’t sure how he’d carried seventy kilograms of half-dolphin up the stairs without dropping him, but here they were. Jace was in a nice, warm bathtub, and Ral groaned as he pulled off his wet boots.

            “Ral?” Jace called from the other room, and Ral yanked off his overcoat and looked around for a coatstand. Not finding one, he sighed, let it fall to the ground, and headed into the bathroom. “You all right?” he asked. The discarded dress lay on the ground nearby, soaked in a good half-inch of water that Jace seemed to have managed to slop everywhere. “The bath’s not too hot, is it?”

            Jace shook his head. “It’s nice, especially after the last few nights. Ral—”

            “Yes?”

            “I think this is the first time I’ve felt really safe and alone with you,” Jace finished speculatively as Ral bent down over the bathtub.

            He laughed. “Yeah, we’ve spent a while running for our lives, haven’t we?” And then the sleeping outside hadn’t gone so well for Jace by himself: his tail still had a few raw, bleeding spots where the local predators had taken offense to his intrusion.

            “The door to the rooms is locked, right?”

            “Yeah, don’t worry. No one is going to see your tail. You’re safe.” Ral shuffled, still feeling vaguely strange about the warm feeling he got in his stomach when he looked at Jace. He was not usually a terribly protective person, or at least he didn’t account himself as such, but Jace seemed to bring it out in him, for all that the merman had probably saved him just as often as Ral had saved _him_. Well, perhaps they could both be protective of one another.

            Jace smiled, suddenly, piercingly fond. “That’s good, but it’s not why I asked,” he murmured, and he reached up and caught at the back of Ral’s neck, pulling him down and kissing him, long and slow and sweet.

            “Mph,” Ral said intelligently, shocked into immobility for three heartbeats, and then he responded, letting Jace pull him down and bracing himself on Jace’s shoulders. Jace’s lips were hot on his own, and Ral found himself tracing them with his tongue, gingerly at first, then probing harder as Jace moaned and clutched at his shoulders. He broke the kiss, gently, eliciting a soft whimper from Jace, and used the opportunity to press kisses down the side of Jace’s throat, along his shoulder, his collarbone—Ral paused and licked a questioning stripe down the center of Jace’s sternum. Water slopped over the side of the bathtub as the merman’s tail thrashed.

            Then he was pushing himself up further, angling so that he could clutch at Ral’s neck. “Do you have to wear so many clothes?” Jace asked petulantly as his fingers caught in Ral’s cravat.

            “No,” Ral responded emphatically. “I absolutely do not. Just give me—” Jace’s curious hands had stroked all the way down his front, pausing at his groin, and Ral hissed and bit back an exclamation.

            “I think I’d like to examine _you_ this time,” Jace told him gleefully, and that made Ral strip off jacket, shirt, and trousers in record time.

            “Is there room in that bathtub?” he asked as he kicked his trousers back to somewhere where they might not end up soaked.

            “Yes.” Jace reached out and grabbed his wrist. “Ral, _please_.”

            Ral let himself be pulled forward, more by the hoarse depth of arousal in Jace’s voice than by any actual force behind the tug. He clambered awkwardly into the bathtub and bit his lip as the warmth of the water surged up his legs. Jace’s hands landed on his hips, tugging him insistently downwards, and water slopped out of the tub as he clumsily levered himself down on top of the merman’s tail. Jace made a low noise as Ral’s weight landed on him, and then he hitched his tail upward slightly. Something long and hard pressed against the inside of Ral’s thigh, and he looked down to see Jace’s erection uncoiling from inside his slit. Trembling, slightly awed, Ral slipped his hand loosely around it, studying it. It was thinner than his own, more tapered, and the color was paler, matching Jace’s dolphin lower half more closely than his human upper half.

            Jace squeaked, and his erection actually coiled around Ral’s hand. Ral’s own penis twitched in response, and he closed his hand gently around Jace, running his thumb gently over the slick surface. Jace moaned, and Ral looked up to see the merman, mouth open, eyes lidded and heavy with arousal, a heavy flush showing high on his cheekbones. Ral swallowed. “Oh,” he said, and then he searched for another word, because he didn’t _have_ another word, because there was no word in the world that could encompass what he was feeling right now as he dipped his hips forward and thrust gently against Jace’s erection and his own hand.

            “Mmmmnnnn,” Jace whined, and then Ral was leaning forward, pushing their mouths together, his free hand twining desperately in Jace’s hair. Hands caught at Ral’s shoulders; nails drew parallel lines of sparking sensation down his back and spine; something slick and cylindrical wound itself around Ral’s penis, and he gasped, hips jerking forward, knees giving out. Jace surged up in the water, arms wrapping around Ral before he could fall, catching him gently. They fell sideways, and the water closed over Ral’s head, but before he could panic, Jace’s lips covered his own, and he gasped in a sudden, shocked breath. Jace was whimpering into his mouth, and his erection was twisting around Ral’s, his tail bucking urgently against Ral’s hips. Ral found himself answering, awkwardly trying to thrust against Jace, and the two of them stuttered into something like a rhythm.

            They were weightless, even with the cold metal side of the tub at Ral’s back, and that heightened the surreality of the scene. It was not as if Ral had never been with another man, but generally there had been at least a bed beneath them, or a wall, or some form of solid surface. Here there was nothing but the water and Jace’s arms at his back, Jace’s tail between his legs, Jace’s erection around his own, sending hot spiking heat from Ral’s groin to his chest, and Jace’s lips, covering his own, his only source of oxygen. The pounding of his heart was thunderous in his ears, but every other sound was muted.

            Ral found himself tightening his thighs around Jace’s tail, grasping for the small of the merman’s back; Jace made a soft, muted noise, and his erection constricted, just a little, sending sensation jittering through Ral’s and up his spine. Ral briefly found himself remembering the pull and tug of the Voltava’s current at his ankles. It was a strange, jarring memory, drawn from nowhere, and Ral himself was drawn down into the weightless heat, Jace’s murmuring voice speaking muddily into his mouth, the strange sleek warmth of Jace at his front—Ral’s head jerked back, knocking into the back of the bath. He tried to draw breath and found only water, but it was too _late_ , he was already over the edge, world spinning away into whiteness—

            Some indeterminate amount of time later and he found himself coughing and vomiting over the edge of the tub while a worried Jace held his head. His back and chest ached as if they’d had a knife pushed through them, and the inside of his mouth tasted like soap and stale bile, but he was also warm, his limbs tingling pleasantly. The combination of sensations was difficult to parse.

            “Ral?” Jace said worriedly. “Are you all right?”

            He coughed again, spat over the side, and leaned against Jace. “I’ll be all right in a minute,” he managed hoarsely. “Perhaps in future we had better do this in a shallower bath, but I’ve taken no real harm.”

            “In future?” The question came quick and almost fearful.

            Ral gave him a tired look. “Do you really think a little minor drowning is going to scare me off? At this point I’m used to it.”

            Jace blew out a long breath, and then leaned his forehead against Ral’s. “I’ll never let you drown,” he murmured, and there was a glimmer of blue in the depths of his pale eyes.

~

            The high dark trees of the forest cut off most of the sunlight, and Ral shivered and turned up his collar against the chill. In the river beside him, Jace popped his head up, then turned, backed up several paces, and kicked forward powerfully, ending in a higher jump than Ral had ever seen him make. “I _remember_ this place!” he shouted excitedly, before landing in the water with a splash and bobbing up again, actually grinning. “I don’t remember anything about it, but I’ve _been_ here!”

            It was an untamed forest very near Prague, through which a section of the Voltava ran. Some judicious inquiries on Ral’s part in the city had turned up rumors of Lorelai in its depths, and, after a long consultation with Jace, they’d agreed that it was at least a good place to start looking. There had been a bit of an argument when Jace tried to convince Ral he should at least visit his parents, but Ral hadn’t wanted to deal with—that. It was easier to pretend it wasn’t an option than try to deal with the layer of raw pain and fear that Ral knew was still floating just beneath the surface.

            Watching Jace’s sheer joy was enough to bring a small smile to Ral’s face, at least, as well as the rush of intellectual accomplishment. He’d guessed right. His hypothesis was well-founded. And god—Ral didn’t understand it. Jace was so much more than anything Ral had ever had before. Again that strange feeling of protectiveness swelled in his chest.

            The wind whistled through the trees, a high, strange, lost noise. Ral blinked, hand reaching for his replacement notebook out of habit. Somehow, even the feeling of the cool leather binding beneath his hand wasn’t comforting. Soon, he thought, they’d find Jace’s home. His family. And then he wouldn’t need Ral anymore.

            The thought rose up, simple and stinging. Ral would be set adrift, once again. The perpetual outsider. The man with no home, the man that no one wanted. The man with no purpose. He’d solved the puzzle of the merfolk, after all, and he’d written it all down. The information existed in usable form outside of his head. Almost automatically, he slipped his notebook deep into an inside pocket of his coat, stripped off the coat, folded it, and laid it carefully on the ground.

            “Ral?” Jace’s voice said from very far away. “What are you doing?”

            The wailing of the wind was getting louder. Ahead of them, several dark rocks protruded from the surface of the river, breaking the glassy surface in a riot of seething white foam. Just beyond, there was an abrupt drop, from which a soft roaring noise seemed to be emanating. A waterfall, presumably. Ral wondered what was beyond it.

            “Ral, I’m not sure—Ral, wait!”

            It was only a few more steps to the edge, to where the earth turned over and the river rioted its way down a rocky scree. Not quite a cliff, but close. At the bottom was a vast lake, wreathed in soft mist. And—the melody drilling its way through Ral’s skull wasn’t the wind. In the center of the lake were three figures, mostly obscured by the mist, but Ral could see enough to see that their mouths were open. They were singing. Curious.

            “Ral, _stop_!”

            He was at the edge, staring down. The water waited, dark and cool and welcoming. End the journey. End the wandering. He was so _tired_ of it all. So tired of never belonging anywhere. He just wanted—he just wanted to sleep.

            A shrieking, discordant note cut through the soft song, and Ral blinked, putting a hand to his suddenly-aching head and taking a half-step back from the edge, suddenly uncertain. Landing on water would not be a particularly painless way to die, unless he was very lucky. But it was so difficult to think, and he really was—exhausted—

            “ _Stop!_ ” Hands on his waist, and he was falling to the side. He landed hard in the mud, Jace’s full weight flopping onto his legs. “What are you _doing_?”

            It took a minute for Ral to realize that Jace wasn’t talking to him, but was instead staring down the slope towards the three mist-cloaked figures.

            “Let me go,” Ral tried to say.

            “No!” Jace snapped. He looked back down the slope. “Why?” he said, in the most heartbroken tone Ral could imagine his lover ever uttering. The soft noise of the wind—no, it wasn’t the wind, was it?—the soft melody shivered apart for a moment, and the terrible weight on Ral’s chest lifted momentarily with it.

            “You are one of us?” a lilting voice called up in very slightly accented Czech. “You’re welcome here, then, child.”

            “Leave Ral alone!” Jace shouted back. The music swelled again.

            “Jace, don’t,” Ral said softly. “I’m not one of them. I’m not—I don’t belong here. Or anywhere.” Odd. His face was wet. “You do, Jace. These are your people.”

            “That’s not _true_!”

            “Men are not welcome here,” the speaker from below said. “But—wait—did you say your name was _Jace_?”

            “Yes,” Jace responded distractedly. “Ral, stop.”

            “Let me go. Jace, these are your family. These are—” He was hoarse, and his throat was hurting for some odd reason. “This is where you belong.”

            “I belong with you,” Jace said, and Ral blinked at him in confusion. “I belong—you—you _idiot_!” The water was still calling, still clawing at the back of Ral’s brain, and he found himself trying to heave Jace off without really thinking about what he was doing. “ _Stop it_!” Ral couldn’t tell who Jace was yelling at anymore. “Listen, we’ll go away again, I’ll take him away again—”

            “We can’t risk him telling others about us.”

            “He _wouldn’t_. He saved me. I wouldn’t even be here if he hadn’t nearly gotten himself tortured and killed letting me out, and he’s—he’s one of us. He’s one of our people.”

            “I’m not,” Ral put in, confused.

            “Yes, _you are_ ,” Jace told him angrily. “I don’t remember anything except one song, and you recognized that song as well. You are one of us.”

            There was a heartbeat of strange silence. “What song?” the voices asked.

            “He’s saying I’m Jewish,” Ral put in, “and I’m not. Not anymore. Not really.”

            “Ral, I remember _one song_ ,” Jace snarled. “If you’re not Jewish, then neither am I.”

            “That’s not—”

            “Shut up. You belong with me, I’m not going to let you go.”

            “And you’re sure your name is Jace?” the voice from below called up worriedly.

            “Um, yes?”

            “Will you and your friend come down here?”

            “Only if you promise not to try to kill him again and Ral promises not to do anything stupid.”

            “If he’s a child of Israel, then…” the voice trailed off begrudgingly. “All right. Bring him down.”

            Ral raised an eyebrow at Jace. “I’m soaked,” he said irritably.

            “You. You were about to throw yourself off a cliff!” Jace raged.

            “Yeah, well—” Ral blinked a few times. He still felt wobbly and tired, but the exhaustion and draw of the dark water seemed to have faded with the music. “Now I’m not, but I am very wet. Good thing I didn’t ruin another notebook.”

            “You are _impossible_.”

            Ral rubbed his face, trying to scrub off what he was pretty sure were tear tracks. “I take pride in that,” he pointed out, and Jace gave a huffing sigh, and then leaned forward to kiss him.

            He made his way carefully down the steep slope as Jace hovered at the top of the falls and then dove, performing a smooth swan dive that Ral thought he’d never have been able to do if it hadn’t been for the amount of swimming and diving he’d been able to do over the last several months, as they made their slow, winding way across Europe. God, he was graceful. God, he was beautiful. Ral stumbled and had to steady himself, but eventually he made it to the bottom without falling.

            Jace immediately swam for the shore, and Ral squatted awkwardly beside him as they waited. It wasn’t long before multiple heads broke the surface of the lake—all three of the new merfolk were female; the one in the lead had long white hair that trailed down over her shoulders, and she looked oddly familiar. It took Ral a minute to realize that she had Jace’s eyes, large, blue, and slightly tilted, looking out from an older, paler face.

            “Jace—oh—it _is_ you.” The face crumpled slightly. “I never thought that I would see you again,” she said softly, reaching out a long-fingered hand to touch Jace’s cheek. Jace stared in what seemed to be confusion, then frowned a little.

            “I…I think I remember you?” he said softly. “I remember—lighting candles?”

            “The Shabbat candles,” smiled the merwoman. “Yes, Jace. Oh, my little boy. What—what happened to you?” she croaked. “We knew you’d been taken—you were always so curious, and I warned you not to go close to—” her eyes narrowed slightly as she gazed at Ral, but Jace reached for his hand and held it tightly.

            “A man named Alhammarret purchased me from the fishermen,” he said. “At least, that’s what he told me. I don’t remember much about that—just nets and knives and—” he paused and took a deep breath. “I was in London—in England—when Ral found me and helped me escape. He taught me to r-read.”

            “Don’t be ridiculous,” Ral put in. “You basically taught yourself.”

            “I couldn’t have done it without you.” Jace stared at the ground as if he didn’t know what to do with himself.

            “Jace,” Ral said gently. “I’m pretty sure this is your mother, uh…”

            “Ranna,” the woman answered. “Yes, you—Jace—you’re my only child. I’m so—” she pressed her lips together as if she didn’t know what else to say.

            “You should go to her,” Ral said gruffly. “C’mon, you can’t sit on the bank all day.”

            “I could,” Jace muttered mulishly. He seemed lost and awkward in that moment, and it hurt Ral’s heart, because he’d just been _found_.            

            “Go on,” Ral told him, giving his shoulder a little shove. Jace gave him an agonized look before taking a deep breath and sliding into the water, propelling himself forward just enough so that Ranna could take him gently in her arms and kiss his forehead, then rest her chin on his head. Ral had to look away.

            _I don’t belong_ , he reminded himself, trying not to eavesdrop on the murmured words spilling out of Ranna’s mouth, so it took a moment to realize it when she addressed him instead.

            “Thank you for bringing my son back to me,” she said. “Even if you _are_ a landwalker—”

            Jace shook his head. “He’s not _even_ anything,” he said fiercely. “Ral’s—” and then he broke off, and Ral’s eyes whipped up to look at him, because Jace could _not_ —even beyond the legs versus tail problem, they were both men, _Jace no_ , _Jace you can’t_ —

            “Ral’s my lover,” Jace said clearly.

            The shock of the words went through Ral like an electric thrill, and he saw Ranna’s eyes widen as well. The merfolk on either side of her gave little shocked gasps.

            “I…see,” Ranna said slowly. “Well…” she paused, and Jace reached behind himself to take Ral’s hand. “You’re my son,” she said quietly. “I thought I had lost you forever, and I will not lose you again. No matter what.” Her eyes caught Ral’s. “Discretion will make this easier,” she told both of them, “but you are welcome in our home.”

            Ral stared at her stupidly, not quite certain how to respond as Jace turned entirely around and threw his arms about him. Behind him, Jace’s mother watched them with a peculiar expression on her face, and then she smiled at Ral, a little hesitant, but a smile nonetheless. “Thank you for bringing Jace home,” she said after a moment. “I am forever in your debt.”

            _You are welcome in our home_. Ral wasn’t certain what that entailed, but with an armful of Jace and the hesitant smiles of not only Ranna but her two companions, he wasn’t inclined to concern himself over details. Instead, he buried his face in Jace’s neck and breathed deeply.

            “You’re home,” he murmured to Jace. “You’re safe.”

            Jace kissed his cheek, ran a hand through his hair. “So are you.”

 

           


End file.
